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Anyway... I hear a distant sound: that of a ball beginning to roll. This is the beginning of something I've written in two different ways so far but am still not happy with. There's this - what I like to call the Kadabra Version - and another, the Parasect Version. One day, perhaps these will be continued. Until then... I suspect not.

I call it BRAAAIINS! I Mean, an Automortography. A silly conceit, but it appeals to me because, well, I am silly.

The first thing I was aware of when I woke up was I.

That probably doesn't mean all that much to you, I know, but bear with me. It's difficult for me to put it down in words – I'm still getting used to using them, I'm afraid. It hasn't been easy to adapt, but then again, it's been pretty damn far from easy for everyone.

All right... Let me try and explain. Before... all this, I wasn't I. I was part of a great big we. That's how it is for us, usually. The individual is nothing in our society, because our minds aren't separate like yours. We don't have those strange boundaries and defences you erect at the corners of your psyches; we flow through each other, sharing memories, feelings, thoughts – all with such total freedom that we often don't even notice we're separate organisms. It was an old saying of ours that God made just one of us, but gave us a thousand hands to work with.

You'll notice the past tense. Was. The thing is, it probably still is.

I just don't know any more, because I'm no longer part of the Great Mind. For the first time in my life, I'm me.

And that's the first thing I was aware of when I woke up.

I sat up – I, not one of our bodies but I – and looked around. I was sprawled on hard concrete near a wall – in an alleyway, by the look of things. Some bin bags had burst a short way away, scattering rubbish over the paving-stones. The sun shone brightly down on my little alley, and all around me the world was quiet and at peace.

I raised my hands and looked at them, watching them tremble. I was moving them, I thought. Of my own free will. I clenched them into fists and uncurled them again, watching the fur shift on my knuckles.

What happened to me?

Oddly, it didn't feel as lonely as I thought it should. After all, I was one mind alone in the psychic landscape; by rights I should have felt terrified. But no. Instead, I felt... calm. As if this were somehow something normal – and indeed I supposed it was. Most of the world's animals had their own minds. I had previously been in a minority.

Is this how humans feel?

I couldn't quite get over it. I was me, and... and that was not frightening, just unusual. The fact revolved in my mind like a gem in a display case, and I examined it from all sides with the dispassionate eye of a scientist. A slew of theories flashed through my mind – this calm was a reflex designed to protect me from madness in case of disconnection from the Great Mind; it was a by-product of insanity resulting from said disconnection; it was the feeling that was supposed to overcome one shortly before death – but I shut them out. Now was not the time for that kind of speculation; without the resources of the Great Mind at my disposal, I was only a few times more intelligent than the average human, and I had no idea what the limits of my consciousness were. I didn't want to damage it through overexertion.

All right, I said to myself. So I'm me, now. That's all right. I can deal with it. I am a creature of near-infinite understanding and sagacity.

I breathed deeply for a while, eyes closed. When I opened them again, I knew it was fine. There was no we, only I, and all was right with the world. Whatever the cause of my dislocation from the Great Mind, I was me, and for whatever reason that fact had not destroyed my mind.

Now I began to take stock of my situation a little. My psychic Eye didn't seem to be functioning – perhaps I had lost that ability too, I didn't know – but I still had a sharp sense of smell, good eyesight and excellent hearing, and those three senses combined gave me a fairly comprehensive picture of my surroundings. I smelled something rotting nearby, and heard the clatter of pigeon wings somewhere above me.

I frowned. That was all? Just pigeon wings? I listened harder, but there was nothing else – no footsteps, no cars, no music. The city was almost entirely silent.

A chill ran down my spine and I registered it with interest – personal fear was something new to me.

It only took me a second to decide I didn't like it.

Shivering, I stood up, preparing to leave the alley and investigate – but as I turned, my eye fell onto something red on the wall I had been sitting up against, and I froze.

A few feet from the ground was a dark red stain, and running down from it was a huge crimson smear, terminating in a large blot on the ground.

I did not need to sit back down to know that the stain was level with where my head had been. I also did not need to sniff the air to work out what the dark red substance was, but I did so anyway, and was answered by a sharp iron smell.

Swallowing – fear was potent stuff, I realised distantly – I reached up to the back of my head, and—

And then I remembered.

It all made sense. The head injury had shaken my memory up a little, of course – in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'd shed a few hundred IQ points; I certainly seemed to be operating on a human level now – but I at least knew what had happened.

For you see, about three hours ago I had been cornered by a pack of ravening zombies, and together they had chewed through the back of my head and eaten part of my brain.

---

This did not surprise me. You have to realise this. Despite the fact that I had no memory of much before the incident – an occupational hazard of severe brain trauma, I understand – I did remember that much. I didn't know why zombies had attacked me, or where they had come from, or why they hadn't stayed to finish me off – but I knew that they were the cause of my unconsciousness.

Also, that I was presently undead.

All right, so I'm dead, I told myself, and waited for the panic.

None came.

This was a faint surprise, but given the circumstances, rather welcome. Becoming conscious of my own individuality, dying and coming back to life all in one day was enough to think about for now without a helping of shock to go with it.

I let out a long, shaky breath and leaned against the wall.

Well, well, well, I murmured. This is peculiar. Then again, I suppose the undead aren't generally too worried about their state of existence. Perhaps it's a side effect of the zombification process.

I stopped there. Unchecked speculation was foolish; after all, part of my brain had been eaten. I would have to take it easy on the thinking until I had some way of assessing my abilities in that area. Instead, I turned my thoughts to the problem of my next move.

Well, I said, what now?

I was in the middle of an unknown human city, apparently alone save for – if my sense of smell hadn't failed me – some older and more rotten undead somewhere in the distance; given my current condition, I probably didn't need to eat or drink, which simplified matters, but I had some questions that I felt demanded answers. 'Why are there zombies?' was a prominent one, and 'Where can I get some brains?' was another.

I paused. Wait. What was that last one?

Where can I get some brains?

I was certain that wasn't something I'd thought of consciously, but now that I did think of it, brains would be delightful right about now. Soft, delicious, melt-in-the-mouth brains, scooped fresh from the cranium and slurped from the braincase, picked apart and eaten piece by delicious piece: medulla, hypothalamus, cerebellum, amygdala...

Brains, I said aloud, beginning to salivate. Brains. Braaaaiins.

The idea took root. There was nothing in the world except me and the squidgy grey lump of flesh that lies between the ears. A thin mist descended on my vision, and I raised my muzzle and howled at the sky like my canine ancestors.

BRAAAIIINS!

The psychic shout split the air and sent pigeons scattering overhead. I snarled, imagining their tiny heads, the splodges of sweet sentient tissue within their skulls, and ran out into the street. Brains. Brains. I had to have brains. There were brains to be had somewhere, and they were destined for my mouth.

All around me were the silent husks of crashed cars and twisted bicycles; elegant houses rose on either side, but my nose told me they were devoid of living meat and so they might as well have not existed. I howled again, this time in fury – where were the ****ing brains? – and started off down the street, drawing in vast sniffs of air with every breath, searching for that magical scent, that glorious bloody organic odour—

There. There, behind those bins. Something was moving, and if it was moving it had to have a brain—

I dropped instinctively into the hunting position, on all fours, and charged them like a wolf, my back arching and flexing with more exercise than it had seen in years – in my entire life – and in a flash I was leaping a dead motorbike, and smashing a dustbin out of the way with my head, and now I was flying through the air, jaws wide, claws forward—

—and with a dull thump I smacked into decaying flesh, and the zombie I had leaped at fell to the pavement, wailing piteously in surprise and anguish.

I paused. Rational thought returned. What was I thinking? I, a civilised being, attacking an ambulatory human corpse with the sole idea of eating its brain? I regarded the necrotic creature beneath me with disgust. It (well, technically he, but I shuddered at the thought of treating it as an equal) was badly decayed, intellectually lower than a Sandshrew, and all in all not worth the effort.

Besides, I said to myself, his brain is all dead and disgusting.

This, more than anything else, broke the spell, and I got back to my feet, wiping my hands carefully on the zombie's ragged coat.

Good grief, I said, looking at him. You're a disgusting creature, aren't you? You haven't even kept your brain intact. That got me thinking about brains again, but I resisted. I was not some cannibalistic monster; I lived (when I had lived) on a diet of light meats, with the occasional apple or orange.

It was at this point that I realised the zombie was climbing to its feet, and that it looked rather upset. I became very aware that I was barely four feet tall, and that it was more than six; also that one could, with basic surgical training, have fit four of my biceps into a single one of its own.

Now, I said nervously, backing away into the street, raising my hands in what I hoped was a placatory manner. There's no need for hostilities. Seriously. I wasn't going to eat your brain. I don't even want to eat your brain, not any more. I'll just be on my way, and you—

“Braaah,” moaned the beast. I had a horrible feeling that I knew what it was trying to say.

Come again? I tripped over a broken bicycle, regained my balance and kept walking. The zombie maintained its steady advance, murder in its piggy little eyes.

Five minutes later, I was beginning to enjoy my new independence from air; I felt like I could run all day and not lose my breath. Then again, I thought, I would soon begin to rot, and that would probably put an end to any future sprinting.

As it turned out, I had easily been able to outpace the zombie: it had been dead for too long to be able to pursue me at any more than a slow shuffle, and I had lost it within two minutes of the start of the chase. I had kept running through the twisted streets to be sure, though, and had stopped only when I heard something that definitely did not belong in this dead city.

Now, who could that be? I wondered. Humans... living humans. With brains! I shook my head. Forget about the brains, dammit! As well as their brains – which are, I must concede, delicious – they may also have answers to those questions you had earlier. Such as 'Where can I get some brains?' I screwed my eyes shut and thumped myself on the head. No! Not that! For God's sake, you have such a one-track mind, and – and now you're talking to yourself, I concluded lamely. Well, this is an excellent turn of events...

The engines were very close now; just around the corner, from the sound of things.

Good grief, you sound like a human, I told myself. I guess that's what you get for a hole in the head... Well, perhaps it'll help put them at ease. Come on, now. Step out into the street, say hello. Be polite; they're the ones with the answers.

I stepped out onto the street, and waved my arms.

Hello! I cried, as a battered car appeared from around the corner. Hey! Over here!

The car was moving at alarming speed, I noticed. Easily fast enough to crush me, should it hit me – and, the prospect of being smashed flat not being one I relished, I decided to keep my distance.

Hey, I know you can hear me! I yelled. This is telepathy! You've got no excuse not to—

I broke off as I saw the reason for the car's haste.

Ah, I said. Aw, ****.

I have to say that I had not, prior to my death, been particularly knowledgeable in the zombie mythos. That was a human thing; my people had no need for entertainment beyond the contemplation of abstracts, and so I don't think I had ever read a book or watched a film. I knew a fact here and there – that they craved brains, as had been so forcibly made clear to me earlier; that they were necrotic and in consequence shuffled around at a careful shamble.

I also knew that they formed hordes.

And the thing pursuing the fast-moving car was most definitely one of those.

I felt the hunger for brains returning, rising in my empty belly like a waking tiger; these people in the car had brains, luscious, living brains, and I needed those; I needed to be with my brethren, with my brothers and sisters of the horde; I had to follow the car and find the brains—

It sped closer. I stared at the proffered hand. It looked... surprisingly juicy. God, had humans looked that way before? I'd never noticed. I could sink my fangs into that and...

I slapped myself, hard, and grabbed onto the hand with both claws.

For one brief moment, I was flying towards a wondrous sentient buffet—

—and then I was crumpled on the back seat of the car, concentrating hard on not splitting open my saviour's skull and sucking the sweet nectar out from within. It was a good thing, I thought, that my telekinesis appeared to have been generated from the part of my brain that had been eaten, or I would have probably splattered my newfound friends over the inside of their car in my eagerness to taste the inside of their heads.

That's all I've got of it, and potentially all I ever will. Huh. We'll see.

Well that was certainly interesting. Hive mind and zombies, never seen that combination before. I'm going to guess that the person that saved our intrepid hero is a zombie also seeing as the someone said my and the fact that they didn't use telekinesis.

Zombies, give a person individuality one brain at a time. And the quickly taking it away.

I;d write more but i have a head ache.I don't know whether to thank you or curse you as reading this has made my head ache worse. Reading each line was great to read and engrossed my mind, but each line on the screen also made my eyes hurt worse. So thanks/f you. ( No really, I even wrote most of this with my eyes closed and probably should go to bed x\ )

Ahhh, I'm not good at writing one-shots and every sentence, so here's one I got.

"I was once an unassuming Shuppet doll that no one wants to take or have their clinging desires for. They don't want a badly drained, blank face doll like me. I was sealed in a state of muteness, as no one noticed my internal, bottled up frustration and my dark despair to the whole world.

It was once a spring afternoon in Virbank City. I recalled it as a busy yet exhilarating day. Various chatter and other joyful noises reached their way towards the Pokémon Megastore nonstop I took a glimpse at the sun that was shining through the windows. I could observe every detail that's around my immobile state, and that's very special.

The only time where I would be happy was when various customers would race into the store like if a burst of energy was pulsed into their minds. They would quickly take their desired things in a heartbeat and call this store the best one there was in countless years.

But I recall that one day, on the 12th of June. That day was my breaking point. I saw one boy come into the store. He had a joyful look on his face that gave me a curious feel. He lightly emitted out a few awes while he gazed around the expansive area. The female worker with an apron on her blue shirt walked to the boy. She kneeled down and rubbed his bushy brown hair.

"Hey, little guy," she greeted happily, "Is there anything you want?"

All of a sudden, the door was flung open, releasing an alarming bang; some of the novelties clatter nonchalantly. All of us quickly looked at the door, but it was his mother. She had a tired look on her face. Not only that, but she roughly tried to breathe, but it came out as a ghastly sound that frightened us.

"Mama! I want that doll, that doll," the boy yelled. He identified me with his finger. He jumped anxiously with his excitement coursed in his little body.

The mother's hair jumped up alertness as she spoke, "Ok, ok. Try to get that, ok?"

The boy happily skipped along the sleek pavement on the floor towards me. I was very excited to finally leave this store where no one wanted to take me as their friend. But he took a glimpse at my meaningless gaze. As he scampered back nervously, his hopes were dropped. His face slowly turned into a gloomy expression. Tears quickly rushed down from his face and faintly dripped on the floor.

Soon enough, his face lighted up into a deep shade of red; the green disgust that streamed out of his nostrils really made me disgusted.

"Mama! I want the other one! Mama," the boy whined loudly. His mother dashed towards her unsettled child and pats his back gently. The light pats that were massaging his pain soothingly eased it away.

The mother calmly said, "There, there. Let's get you the other big Minccino Doll ok?"
Once I heard that, that really grinded my gears. I was in a state of alertness as it loudly echoed in my mind with its faint messages. I hated that doll with a deep and excruciating passion. Everyone would ignore me like I don't exist and these morons wanted to take that one since it looked "infatuating".

Its gleaming, bug sized eyes gave me a nauseous feel that made my body ache with such an intense pain inside myself that made me want to regurgitate out my cotton, though I'm not an real animal. Its creepy smile really made me an intriguing thought, along with its light fur that made it over the top with its shiny looking appeal. As soon as I saw those two purchase that monstrosity and left, my frustration towards that doll cleared.

I always got ignored by those inconsiderate customers. That's one thing that made my mind like a tricky puzzle. Every time, I laid my yellow eyes on them obsessively buying other dolls like if they were a pack of hungry wolves. It would irk me when I heard them call them call them "cute", "adorable", or "cozy". It would create a furious cloud that rained on my self-esteem with loud thunder that cracks inside."

Cutlerine, I'm somewhere between highly disturbed, wanting to vomit, and incredibly entertained by what you have there. It was peversely pleasing to read.

Volcanix, you're exploring something I've always been intrigued in. I'd like to see where it's going, and if it's where I think it's going, if it's something you're continuing.

This is part of a little something I've been working on lately. I was going to write it as a one-shot, but then I had many FANTASTIC IDEAS that my brain refused to let go of. Hopefully I'll get it finished and won't procrastinate constantly.

This is the first 1,400 words-ish.

---

The clouds were thick and grey, they blotted out the sky. Rain poured from them in torrents, preventing the concrete ground from drying at all. Talia watched from her window the streets of Castelia city below, and listened to the drumming of the raindrops, and occasional rumble of thunder. She sat on her wide window-seat, looking through the glass and towards the docks. She lived in a two-floor penthouse and it afforded her a stunning view of the harbour below. Recently, a grand cruise liner named the ‘S.S. Anne’ had docked along one of the piers. It was to stay for a week or so, and this meant that foreign trainers from many lands filled the city.

Talia sighed noticing a trainer running back towards the ship with a ludicolo prancing happily alongside. She was sixteen. She hadn’t been allowed to become a trainer. ‘Far too dangerous’, her father had said. Talia was desperately sick of the confines of Castelia city. However large it may have been, it was still like a prison – when Talia walked amongst the high-rises they seemed to trap and confine her. She shook herself, took another glance out of the window and then grabbed a coat from her wardrobe.

“I’m going to the café, I’ll be eating there tonight,” she called as she left the apartment. She didn’t wait for an answer.

***

Talia had been working at Café Sonata part-time for about a year now. The owner Joe, a man in his late thirties with long brown hair and dark stubble along his jaw, was happy for trainers to bring pokémon in with them and this had been what sparked Talia’s interest. Consequently, she spent a lot of time there even if she wasn’t working.

As she entered, Joe waved from behind the counter and beckoned her over.

“Hey, Tal.” Joe had a gravelly voice. “I know you’re not meant to be workin’ tonight, but Shaun called in sick. You mind pickin’ up a shift? I’ll pay you for overtime.”

She smiled. “That’s okay, Joe. I’ll work for normal rate.” She paused as she ducked behind the counter to pick up a spare apron and pad. “Busy tonight with the S.S. Anne in port?”

“Some of the more curious lot who came on the ship been comin’ in. But a lot o’the locals and other Unovans been invited to a big party they’re throwin’ on board. They’re doin’ it for the next couple of nights too.”

Their conversation broke as a group of three happy, and somewhat damp, looking trainers wandered in, chattering excitedly, with a pignite walking behind them and a pidove perched on one of their shoulders. Talia smiled as the bird Pokémon shook the water from its feathers – causing a disgruntled sound from its trainer and laughter from the trainer’s friends. She took their orders, and served them. She couldn’t help but notice how the pidove’s trainer, a girl younger than Talia, would occasionally drift out of the conversation to pet it – or simply watch it as it antagonised the pignite (by hopping back and forth from its head and shoulder).

“Tal! Order up!” Joe called. “Tal!”

Talia shook herself out of her reverie and took the order to its table. Joe noticed her unconsciously fingering a rectangular shape in one of her pockets as she returned.

He raised an eyebrow, in question. “Trainer card?”

Talia shrugged, with a half-smile. “Anyone can get one.” She sighed. “Even if they’re not given the chance to use it.”

***

Talia stretched and arched her back: the trip over Skyarrow Bridge to Wellspring Cave wasn’t an especially long one, but the school’s coach was cramped and had little leg room.

The trip was intended as both biological and geological – they were going to do a study on the cave’s indigenous wildlife and its rock formations.

“Yay. Time for rocks,” a friend muttered sarcastically, behind her.

“I hope we see some rock-types. Interesting ones, not just roggenrola,” Talia replied.

Another classmate added, “We’ll be lucky to see a sleeping woobat, probably.”

A few people chuckled at this, but Talia just frowned. As they were organised into groups, she turned on her camera, and flicked through a few photos. There weren’t many, and they were mainly shots of pokémon that had come into the café or that she had seen sparsely throughout the city. She double-checked that she had memory left to take more, and then that she had her spare memory card, as they proceeded to walk – group by group – into the cave.

Talia quickly lost interest in whatever it was their teacher was saying. She found herself peering into the darkness, her eyes searching. They were in a small cavern when Talia noticed something dart out of site, down a dark crevice. She quickly checked ahead, she was at the back of the line and everyone was filing out into a narrow tunnel, their teacher had already gone through. Talia made an impulsive decision, darting after the blur she had just seen.

The passage she jogged down was wide and dark, but Talia could still hear the flitting of wings and followed the noise. After a minute or so, she heard more sounds echoing ahead and the darkness began to recede.

Must’ve looped back round to the group, she cursed.

She kept moving ahead, regardless, and as she got closer she noted there was a tone of menace to the voices she could hear.

Strange.

When she had broken out of the dimness completely, she could hear the voices quite clearly.

They were threatening someone. “Hand them over and we won’t-”

“Wait! You hear that, Frank?”

Talia quickly ducked behind a large nearby rock formation. It sounded like two grown men.

Frank sighed. “Probably just a drilbur. Can we get on with this? He ain’t gonna give them up.” There was silence, but apparently Frank’s companion had assented non-verbally due the sounds of a scuffle Talia could hear, and another voice crying out.

“Just leave ‘im here. Let’s run.”

The sounds of running luckily faded away, but Talia still waited for a few moments before acting. Moving from behind the rock formation she scanned the cavern she had entered. Lying unmoving on the ground, half in a pool of water, was a thin and young-looking man. A pair of damaged and bent glasses had fallen on the ground next to him, he was wearing a shirt with pens tucked into the breast pocket and a clipboard had also fallen to his side. He had a black eye, and another prominent bruise along his jaw. She gently pulled the man out of the water, removing a satchel still slung over his shoulder and rested him in the recovery position. Talia picked up the clipboard; attached to it were some kind of research notes on gems and precious stones that were possible to find in the cave. Talia started to search the satchel for a trainer card or some kind of identification and found it had clearly been rifled through. It contained more of the same papers as well as a few other things: an Ultra Ball for one, which Talia was fingering when she heard a scuffling noise behind her.

A drilbur was glaring at her, and the small pokémon looked angry. It immediately began to spray dried mud in Talia’s face, causing her to close her eyes, splutter and cough. Unthinkingly, Talia tossed the sphere in her hand towards the creature and she blinkingly opened her eyes upon realising the attack had stopped. The Ultra Ball was rocking from side to side, and then stopped. It was glittering slightly, with a red glow at its centre. Talia’s eyes widened in surprise; she had just caught a pokémon.

She shook her head: now is not the time. She resumed her search of the bag and found in a side pocket what she was looking for, and something else. A ticket printed on gold-coloured paper with prominent words ‘S.S. Anne’ on it and below this, ‘Passage for One Person from Castelia City in Unova to Olivine City in Johto’. Thoughts raced through her mind. She looked from the ticket to the unconscious man next to her. She bit her lip, hard.

Pocketing the ticket, the man’s trainer card in hand, she darted off for help.

---

The plot has gone somewhere considerably darker in my head than when I started planning. Which happens with a lot of my writing lately, it seems.

Very intriguing start, Daydream. It's refreshing to see a protagonist who's so morally questionable yet sympathetic right from the get-go. I'm wondering what kind of training career will follow.

***

So I've had a faint idea brewing in my head for several years about a very science-y Digimon fic, in contrast to my current Digimon fic, which is more spiritual and adventurous. It wouldn't be about a group of kids who get sent to the Digital World to save the day, but rather about the nature of the Digital World itself and of the Digimon themselves. The tentative title is Digimon 2390.

What follows isn't necessarily the beginning of the story, and mostly I'm wondering if the computer science jargon makes the thing unapproachable, so please let me know if you're lost/bored:

***

Jana was scrawling some barely-legible numbers and symbols on her tablet. These were being projected onto a screen, and fifteen undergraduates were staring at and pretending to comprehend them. Jana knew they were faking, but she didn’t care. Any one of them could have asked for clarification at any time, but they never did. They were apparently learning as much as they wanted to, and she was getting paid, so everyone was happy.

When she was finished writing, Jana said “And that’s the basic proof for solving the Travelling Salesman Problem in exponential quantum-CPU-time and polynomial real-time. Any questions?” She was almost certain that no one would ask anything, and then the students would be the professor’s problem until next week’s recitation and she could go back to her actual work in the lab.

One of them actually raised his hand. For the life of her, Jana couldn’t remember this *sshole’s name, so she pointed at him and said “You,” letting some of her annoyance slip into her tone.

The student asked somewhat sheepishly, “Do you think the universe is digital or analog?”

The rest of the class laughed, and Jana again found herself annoyed. She was annoyed at the one student for wasting her time by trying to start an irrelevant discussion, and she was annoyed at the others for not having the intellectual curiosity to honestly want any kind of discussion. The contradiction was lost on her, but mid-semester TA evaluations were coming up, so she decided to answer the question as well as she could.

“No one’s entirely sure about that. There’s lots of evidence for both sides of the argument.”

Some other *sshole interjected, “So there’s lots of evidence that we’re in the Matrix?”

There was more laughter, and Jana seethed. She couldn’t stand the types who tried to dilute scientific debate by throwing out pedestrian references to first-generation film. Pompous asses. “That’s not what the question is referring to. Of course we could always be in a simulation; the question is whether or not everything in the universe can be expressed as discrete values.”

More students started to pay attention. Perhaps there was some hope for the future. “Consider a wave for example: An analog wave is continuous, like this,”—she picked up her tablet and drew a simple sound wave—“Whereas a digital representation of a wave is composed of straight lines, which can be perfectly conveyed through integer values.” She drew a square wave overtop the original.

“Part of the question is whether actual waves in nature—which appear to be continuous—are in fact discrete, or potentially digital.”

The student who posed the question spoke up again. “Like Planck’s Constant?”

“Sort of. But remember, just because energy can be broken down and counted by quanta doesn’t mean that everything can.”

Another student raised her hand. “What difference would it make, being in a digital world as opposed to an analog one?”

Despite herself, Jana was getting invested. “For regular physics, practically none. However, if we ever plan to get humans to a star system farther than Alpha Centauri in one lifetime, we’ll need a general and implementable solution to the Hyperspace Problem, which is utterly infeasible in an analog universe.”

She had most of the students’ attention now. “How infeasible is it?” asked the one girl student again.

“The algorithm with the best run-time we have for it now is tetrational—not two-to-the-n complexity, but two-to-the-two-to-the-two n times. And even that algorithm has some fundamental flaws and could never accurately guide a ship larger than a closet.”

This raised some eyebrows. Some of them understood what unimaginably large numbers she was talking about by tetration. “However, if we were certain that the ultimate positions of atoms in space were limited to a set of discrete locations, i.e. in a way where we could perfectly represent them with integers, the problem’s complexity could be reduced to merely exponential. Exponential as in a large number to-the-n rather than two-to-the-n, albeit, but not beyond the capabilities of a powerful quantum machine.”

The clock struck 3:20, so most of the students grabbed their bags and headed for the door. Thus ended the illusion of Jana’s having students who cared about learning. “If the topic interests you,” said Jana to mostly deaf ears, “You can look into Hyperspatial Optimization Studies for after graduation.” Not that her program would accept any these deadbeats, thought Jana.

The last handful of students got up, and Jana shoved her tablet into her satchel, wondering why she even bothered. She was grabbing her notebook when she glanced up and noticed that the student who started the discussion was standing in front of her.

Five years ago, Jana would have dropped almost anything to talk more about the subject, but now she just wanted to review the lab findings for the day and then go home. Still, TA course evaluations were coming up, and she needed the money. “Make it quick.”

“I uh…I was wondering what your thoughts are on the feasibility of simulating digital universes. Small scale, of course. Say just the size of Texas.”

“Impossible,” said Jana, which she meant as a dismissive way of saying ‘highly impractical.’

“Oh.”

Sensing some dejection in his voice, Jana decided to elaborate. “At least, it’d be infeasible to simulate anything of near-reality precision any faster than one second per year.”

“What about a universe that isn’t so much like ours: one where the physics are simpler and the minimum distance between particles is much larger?”

Jana shook her head. “It’s a fine thought experiment, but if you’re talking about actual research and programming that’s just not where the money is. It takes serious quantum computing power to do things like that, and we need to devote all those resources to stuff like the Hyperspace Problem.”

“I understand,” said Carson. He bit his lip and glanced at the clock. “Sorry to bother you.”

Carson wasted no more time in walking off. Jana stared at her satchel for a while longer. She hated having conversations like this. They brought up memories of old dreams that had done nothing but set her up for bitter disappointment.

Oh, now I quite liked icomeanon's little chunk of prose. I adore that sort of thing - things you can put on a board and wave at people while yelling 'Science!' at the top of your lungs.

As for your fragment, Maced, I have to say it's definitely different. There's very little to go on there, but your character looks to be something a bit different from the norm, which is refreshing. There's a bit of clunkiness in some of the wording. You repeat 'hiking up' and 'the hill' in the first two sentences, very close together, for instance; it doesn't help that the way the formatting's worked out (on this theme at least) has placed the repeated words almost right underneath one another. Little things like that do detract from it slightly - but as you said, this is just a little piece of a first draft, so I really ought to ignore that sort of thing and concentrate on the idea, and the idea is good.

Anyway, time for my story fragment. This was going to be the start of something, but I'm really not sure what Eric's story might be, so I've left it at that. As it stands, it's merely something between a vignette and half a story.

Two o'clock in the afternoon, and it is the height of the Hoennian summer. Waves roll lazily onto the beach, heaving themselves up onto the sand to break with a sigh of relief; the sun seems to swell in the sky, blotting out the blue with its brilliance. The air is still and dead, and inside the Seashore House, the only thing approximating to a customer is the lone fly that sucks greedily at a patch of spilled beer.

Nat Tanner is bored.

This is the sort of day when no sane person is even on the beach, let alone buying drinks; here, alone except for the fly (and possibly the sweat stains on the armpits of his shirt, which are, by their smell, coming close to achieving some form of microbial life), Nat is beginning to wonder whether he will have the energy to make it home once he shuts up shop. Today is hot even for Hoenn, and he is rapidly losing the will to live. Not even the endless beers he takes from the fridge can cool him; the heat seems to be a living entity, determined to grind him down and crush his head against the floor.
Even his sweat is exhausted, he thinks. It rests in languid beads on his forehead, too tired to drag itself down his brow and drop to the counter. The only thing in the entire shop that seems to be impervious to the heat is that damn fly, still buzzing its wings and racing around in that crazed way insects do.

“Christ,” he mutters, licking dry lips, “I can't take much more of this.”

Had this been a film, something would doubtless have happened at that moment to relieve the tedium: a mysterious stranger would have walked in at the door, or a beautiful girl, or screams would have been heard from the beach. But this was real life, and all that happened was that the fly settled for a moment, just long enough for Nat to think with relief that that bloody buzzing has stopped – and then took off again, circling the room in search of God knows what.

“****,” he mumbled, and dropped his sodden head into his arms.

Time dragged on, unimaginably slowly. The minute hand on Nat's watch migrated sluggishly from one extremity of the face to the other, and back around again.

And a customer arrived.

When he heard the door open, Nat almost couldn't believe it. He froze, listening hard – yes, there it was, the sound of a footstep! He heaved his head upright and beheld what he thought was a youth; he couldn't be certain under the vast quantity of soot that seemed to have settled over him. His hair was on end in ragged spikes, and patches of his clothes appeared to have been inconsiderately replaced with charcoal.

For a moment, Nat stared, and the youth stared back. Then, very slowly and deliberately, the blackened apparition made his way over to the bar and dropped into a seat.

“I...” Nat's tongue took a moment to come unstuck from the roof of his mouth. “You look like you need a drink.”

“Do I? Do I really? How monumentally ****ing observant of you,” replied the kid, with such acid in his voice as could have eaten through plate steel.

“Hm,” said Nat mildly, raising his eyebrows. He was a bartender, after all, and had heard far worse. “Seems you really need a drink.”

“Yes. Yes I do,” the kid snapped. “Like, now.”

“I.D.?”

The youth dug around in his pocket and came up with a singed wallet; from this, he withdrew a laminated card and tossed it onto the counter.

“There.”

Nat examined the card with interest. It seemed the kid was a Trainer – unusual for anyone over sixteen, really; it wasn't an easy career, and a lot of people gave up pretty soon. Evidently this guy – Eric Hawthorne, the card said – hadn't, because he was eighteen. Just old enough to drink, in Hoenn.

“All right,” said Nat. “What do you want?”

“Whiskey,” replied Eric tersely, snatching up his card and jamming it back into his wallet. “I need to get drunk enough to stop feeling pain.”

“Do you need to go to a hospital?” asked Nat, pouring the drink. “You do look a bit... burnt.”

“You really are an observant one, aren't you?” retorted Eric, soot falling in a black shower from his fringe. “Yes, I'm burned. No, I'm not going to the hospital.”

“Nothing injured but your pride, then,” murmured Nat under his breath, placing the whiskey before him and watching with interest as he tried and failed to drink it in one go. Not an experienced drinker, it seemed. When he was sure Eric had finished coughing, Nat asked if he wanted another; the youth nodded, and Nat complied. “So,” he said, as he placed it on the bar, “how did... that” – here he waved a hand in the general direction of Eric's singed body – “happen?”

Eric snorted.

“You wouldn't believe it,” he said scornfully.

“I'm a bartender,” pointed out Nat. “People are always coming in and telling me tall stories.”

“I thought that was only in movies?”

“Clichés are more pervasive than you think. Now, how'd it happen?”

Eric sighed. He was winning him over, Nat could tell; soon he'd have a story to listen to, and that would at least take his mind off the heat.

Cutlerine, you have an interesting way of writing. It's difficult to explain, honestly. I guess it's the perspective it offers? At the very least, it looks like one of those episodes in a show where it ends up being an interesting flashback, mostly to take a break from the exciting main plot that's been racing ahead. Or as a filler because the writers got lazy.

This is a piece of writing I had used for an rp (that happens to be done quite differently than you're probably imagining) and takes advantage of some character personalities, which happens to be an aspect of writing that I'm especially interested and meticulous about. I'm curious to hear what you might think.

"Commander."

Zephyr Rainsville strode after her with a small frown on his normally impassive and calm face. The vice-commander of the fifth unit who wore a tailcoat like a butler was known for his incredible tolerance that made it possible for him to work directly under the twelve year old pillar without a single complaint. However, there came times when even he had to question his superior’s actions or orders, though it was usually not until after the fact. He was loyal, but not unable to think for himself.

"We’ve received no orders to search for and retrieve the second unit commander. Could I ask why?"

"We’re the combat unit. It’s not our job to search for lost soldiers, even one as high a rank as him. He has his own unit that’s worried about him. We can’t insult them by finding their own commander before them, now can we?"

Marianne's responded to Zephyr’s predictable question with a dismissive wave, turning her small back to him. Zephyr sighed at that response, completely unsurprised by her tone that made him feel like an idiot. His commander could be so cruel.

"Then let me ask you this; why did we remain on standby, rather than give orders for us to mobilize? Útgarða’s attack aside, we were prepared to rush in on your orders. But they never came. You just left it as the three of you—four, if you include the second commander who arrived later. But you were still sorely out numbered. I can at least say for sure that you weren’t thinking ‘since we’re commanders, we can easily take on some soldiers from the continents without a problem’."

"Hah. That would be a ridiculous claim after the damage we obviously took."

"Then why?"

Zephyr pressed his question as Marianne merely laughed without humor. Marianne merely sighed as she turned to face Zephyr, resting a hand on her hip as she eyed him with a dull expression.

"Listen, Zephyr. Let’s say there was a war between two sides fighting for superiority. One side as ten tanks while the other has five. Let’s assume that the side with five tanks gathered its five tanks in a single general area as an obvious challenge to you, the side with ten tanks. What would you do as a response? Send all ten tanks and crush them or send only five tanks in order to meet their numbers?"

"Send all ten and crush them." Zephyr responded immediately. It was an obvious question. "If you only send five, you’d face a much greater risk and will probably end up losing more soldiers. In the interest of winning properly, you should take advantage of your superior numbers. That way, you’ll win a battle of superiority."

"My, what a small man you are, Zephyr. I’m ashamed to have to look up at you from my height while you’re truly such a tiny and small person. It’s actually insulting."

"If you sent ten tanks out and won, what would you prove? Only that you have more tanks and, consequently, more money. If that’s the type of superiority that you’re searching for, than you belong in the world of competitive video games and such. That’s not worth anything in this world. If one were to send five tanks and fight the opponent evenly, you would prove much more. Tactical superiority, fierce fighting will, fearless daring…and a lot more. Crushing your opponent with an advantage gained by luck or coincidence is something an amateur can do. Crushing your opponent with nothing but your own skill and determination is actually worthy of note."

"Even if you lose because of your decision?"

"I told you; if all you care about is winning, you do not belong here as my subordinate. You belong with the other scum in the world that rose to the top through deceit and lies, rather than force and selfish ambition. I’d rather be ruled by an arrogant dictator rather than an impotent liar."

Marianne passed her hand through her short blonde hair with finality as she turned on her heel and headed down the hallway. Zephyr sighed miserably. It was he who was being ruled by the arrogant dictator; she didn’t have to worry about making that choice.

"If you still think you can be my second-in-command, Rainsville, follow me. I’ve got an interesting proposition to make."

But sadly, he had to agree that it was the better choice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"My, my, aren’t we bold? Walking into my prison without bothering with the impressive security measures they have against my ability; i.e. a window and microphone to speak to me through."

Björn Útgarða spoke with an amused tone as he heard the doors to his cell open and shut, allowing two pairs of feet to walk in. He still had a visor over his eyes to keep him from seeing anything, but he still spoke without worrying about who it might be visiting him.

Going by his hearing, the two pairs of feet stood right before him; one in what sounded like buckled shoes and the other in dress shoes.

A simple metal fold up chair was set on the ground for the owner of a pair of legs in thigh high socks to sit, clear from the scraping sound made when it was set up and the sound that was different from skin-on-skin when one leg folded over the other. The companion stood behind the chair unhurriedly.

"You’re Björn Útgarða, correct? The one with the interesting ability to modify objects with his tools."

"You’ve heard of me? I didn’t realize I was famous."

"Only a select few amount of people know about you at the moment. You would make a wonderful role model to the lower ranks, if you wished."

"Sorry, I hate underdeveloped kids. It annoys me how they can’t do anything on their own and always need guidance, as I don’t have the patience to teach them. It’s obnoxious."

"You’re pretty bold for a man in line for execution."

"Contrarily, it’s only natural for someone in my situation to be as candid as possible before death. I hear that hell is quite dreary this time of year."

It was like speaking to a mirror. Both sides were speaking casually with smiles on their face. Though one was blinded, they were both attempting to pick each other’s minds through one short conversation.

"So I hear you want to kill the fifth commander, Marianne Slingeneyer."

"Straight to the point, huh? Yeah, that’s why I came. She’s a product of my colleague and my research, but my portion was stolen from me. Since I can’t simply take back my research by this point, I’ll simply have to destroy it completely."

Deductions had already told them as much. Björn had claimed that Marianne’s father, Othinus, had stolen his modification research and used it to make the fifth commander into the abnormal existence she was today. Several conclusions could be made by this; Björn and Othinus had probably been involved in some illegal human modification research and had nothing to do with the army of Condellium. Knowing that airtight continent, Björn was no doubt either a criminal or an unknown face, as he would be captured and executed if caught. That was why he came to kill Marianne—an obvious product of his research that would be all the necessary proof against his word.

But since he didn’t seem to fear capture or execution, it was unlikely he was doing this to escape judgment from the Condellium government. He was no doubt protecting something else that the continent was, perhaps, holding hostage in order to keep him in check.

Those were Marianne’s deductions after hearing the story from Zephyr and Casper.

5th unit commander Marianne Slingeneyer showed no fear before this assassin nevertheless. In fact, she almost seemed happy.

"To think we would cross paths like this at such a convenient time. It must be fate."

"Huh?"

"With your powers, I could further my agenda pretty fast. None of my subordinates have the power of absolute modification over inanimate objects. It would be great if you could get along with Zephyr as the second-in-command of the mechanic divisions."

"Hold on, brat. I told you already; I plan to kill you. Why would I become your subordinate?"

"For that reason exactly, obviously."

It was unsure of when Björn figured out who he was talking to, but Marianne showed no signs of surprise as she folded her arms across her chest and smirked at him. With a signal of her hand, Zephyr moved forward to unclasp the visor from Björn’s eyes. The swarthy skinned smith stared at Marianne with a clear expression of exasperation on his face.

"Though the guys around here don’t like to talk about it, it’s pretty clear that we’re going to go to war with the continents sooner or later. Of course, we intend to win. As such, it’s pretty likely that we’re going to have to resort to defeating our enemies brutally. Being the kind soul that I am, I will fulfill the personal wishes of my loyal subordinates who help me and the other commanders on our conquest. With that in mind, we’ll eventually reach Condellium."

Björn raised an eyebrow in response to that, but didn’t say anything. Marianne went on speaking casually, as if she didn’t realize just how drastic her proposition was.

"Of course, looking at it from a different angle, by becoming my subordinate, you get the chance to grow closer to me and assassinate me properly, though I’m pretty sure you won’t manage that, especially since I’ve made my subordinates all swear to bring my body to the continent of Condellium under any circumstances, even at the cost of their lives. In short, I’m threatening you to either join me or die."

"All that just for my powers?"

"I’m quite desperate as well, you know."

Zephyr’s head snapped toward the fifth commander at the last sentence, completely surprised by the heavy amount of exhaustion and pain in just the few words. Marianne wasn’t exactly the best actor, so it was unlikely she’d faked the sudden change, sounding similar to an elderly man without much time to live. But when Zephyr looked at her face in the fraction of a second after she spoke, he only saw the same arrogant expression on her face.

Björn sighed as he shook his head back and forth.

"So in the end, it all works out for me, eh? What a scary girl. You really remind me of your father."

"Is that so?"

"Yep. He blackmailed me into becoming his partner in research and left me with a dangerous job for the sake of one experiment."

"Sounds like a jerk."

"Your hearing is good."

Marianne motioned toward Zephyr again, who hesitated this time. Marianne raised an eyebrow at him as he dithered.

"Would you prefer the safe route where you stand no chance of losing? He’s going to be your assistant, after all."

Zephyr sighed in defeat as he stepped forward and he held up a chain cutting tool. With four swipes, he severed the chains holding Björn in the air and the man fell to the ground, flat on his back.

"Graceful." Marianne commented as she hopped up from her chair.

"First thing’s first." Björn spoke from the floor without bothering to get up. "Just what do you guys have in the ‘food’ category?"

I've hesitated on multiple accounts on where to go with this, to the point where it is just simply procrastination. I know that the moment I choose one path, I'll regret the other, and I refuse to do anything I'll regret. The more meaningful crossroads are always the most strongly labeled, to put it one way.

Next, I'll probably impose a fanfic expert on you all, mostly because I'm very concerned as to how it comes across to others. My self-absorbed nature makes it difficult for me to imagine how my writing affects other people, for some absurd reason...

There's a bit of clunkiness in some of the wording. You repeat 'hiking up' and 'the hill' in the first two sentences, very close together, for instance; it doesn't help that the way the formatting's worked out (on this theme at least) has placed the repeated words almost right underneath one another.

First drafts are always bad, but I wasn't aware of what you pointed out. Thanks, Cutlerine! I don't care what Eric's story is, as long as you keep that witty narrative voice leading me the rest of the story. That was very good.

Well, this is a experimental scene from a story that I am planning. The story itself likely won't be written for some time, but until then, I've got a series of scenes. Enjoy.

Spoiler:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As he struggled to stand amid the destruction, he looked out into the great, ruined chamber.
The machine, the titanic marvel of modern science that once stood tall and proud against the laws of nature, was now replaced by a blinding, vertical fissure that glowed with a radiant, white energy. Blue flames engulfed the chamber as the tear in the fabric of space burned through reality like a cheap cotton rag.

The man slowly stood amid the smoking carcasses of his naive co-workers that littered the now-inoperable observation deck. He pushed his cracked glasses further up on the bridge of his nose as he tried to keep himself from breaking into hysteria. Shielding his eyes, he took a tentative step forward towards the anomaly their experiment had wrought.

He cringed as he felt his worn-yet-reliable leather work shoes step on something both squishy and crunchy. He glanced down and tried to resist the sudden urge to vomit. It was Charles, or, at least what was left of him. The new intern from MIT's face was completely vaporized; only the semi-melted name tag on his lapel confirmed the identity of the arm the man had just crushed.

The man took a deep breath as he averted his eyes from the grisly scene, and the other similar bodies that were strewn about the room. He looked straight ahead at the partly shattered window, though he immediately wished he had remained with Charles's remains.

A gargantuan tremor shook the chamber and the science facility above it, causing fragments of metal ceiling support beams to snap from their wielded holds and come crashing to the ground while a demonic wail resonated from the center of the torn folds of reality.

The battered scientist watched in silence as the portal warped and nearly inverted on itself as a wave of electric blue energy twisted through the walls. And then, he saw it. The creature. The very air around it seemed to shriek in agony as the unholy organism was wrenched into Earth from its own dimension.

Orange scales and claws that seemed like could rend through a human spine in two seconds flat greeted the entranced scientist as it swooped down from the inter-dimensional gate on two giant wings on its back. It reappeared directly in front of him, its dragon-esque head looked at him and opened a large set of jaws that served as a mouth.

The fear that had been holding the man firmly in place the entire time dissipated along with the remainder of the contents of his bladder as he was knocked to the ground by the dragon's tremendous roar.

It eyed the destroyed computers and bloodied white lab coats of the scientists, before its nostrils flared as it smelled living flesh. It roared again as it smashed through the window of the observation deck with a single swipe of its claws. Glass rained down upon the panicked scientist as he began to crawl on his hands through the smoldering bodies. The dragon swung its flaming tail through the remainder of the glass and crawled into the deck. Sparks and smoke hissed from its mouth as it advanced toward the researcher on the ground covered in the blood of others.

The man did not believe what he was seeing, despite it being only a meter away from chomping his face off with its massive jaws. His survival instincts kicked in at long last, fighting through his formal education of theoretical astrophysics just in time to keep him from getting fried as the orange dragon let out a jet of fire towards him. The scientist crouched behind an overturned metal desk as the flames torched the other side; he felt the heat burn against his back through the surface as the computers and keyboards melted.

When the dragon was finished with its display of power, the man summoned his courage and sprinted to the thick metal blast door which separated the observation deck from the rest of the facility.
Sweat was dripping from every pore on his body as he tried to get his shaking hands to grip the singed lever on the wall. Not even looking behind him for fear that he would freeze again, he remained focused as he finally was able to wrench it down, opening the blackened door with a screech.

The dragon let out another roar; it flapped its wings and flew across the broken room at the man.
The scientist dashed through the open door with adrenaline fueled speed. Once he was safely on the other side, he slammed the button on the wall, closing the door. The door panels sparked and slowly slid across their tracks in the floor towards each other.

Within that very same second, the scientist winced as he felt the force of the creature slamming into the thick blast door. Through the layers of reinforced steel he heard the bones in the dragon's skull shatter and collapse inwards while also hearing its first three vertebrae snap and crunch.

His heart racing like never before, he looked around the corridor. Then he saw it, painted on the wall in red letters above an equally red telephone, the word “Security”.

The passage around him shuddered, a hellish chorus of roars entered the air from all around him, even the levels above him The man didn’t wait any longer, he dashed down the hallway and grabbed the phone off the hook. Breathing hard, he punched in the code on the number pad as the floor beneath him shook even more furiously.

A voice on the other end picked up and asked him what the problem was. The scientist never got a chance to answer as a blood-curdling screech pierced the recycled air of the facility and the ceiling of the hallway caved in just behind him. A very large snake made out of solid steel slithered through the rubble and stared directly at him. His hands went numb as he dropped the still-live telephone and ran for his life down the opposite path.

The bright ceiling lights suddenly flashed red, and the facility wide announcement system blared in alarm. The man could hear rapid bursts of high-caliber gunfire from through the vents as similar happenings instantly repeated themselves across the research facility.

Violence was the only option he had to fix their collective mistake. He had to keep these creatures from escaping into the world above.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cripes, Knightfall, what the heck is going on in that story!? What were those scientists doing to those Pokemon? I figure the first one is a Charizard, and just what happened to it that would make it that destructive?

I just wrote this because it's been floating in my mind since I woke up. Plus, this is a story I'm really interested in writing. I just have too many projects currently going to work on it.

Still, very few people have seen my work, and I haven't posted anything in nearly five years here, so...

--

With an sharp squeal that sounded nothing like him, the Pikachu huddled at the base of a tree. He faced his enemy. The creature barked, hot breath blasting the Pikachu in the face. The sound traveled along the ground to the Pikachu's feet, making him tremble. The beast opened its mouth. Sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight. It closed in on the Pikachu.

-- --

"'Police discovered the body of ten-year-old Kyle Pelter on the outskirts of Castelia City. It is not known yet how Pelter died. Police were only able to identify that the boy was from Nacrene City. Speaking to his family, it was revealed that that Pelter started his trainer's journey a few days ago. Further details will be revealed as soon as they are known.

"'The bodies of two unidentified men were also found near the body of Pelter. Police have determined the two men died from slashes on their bodies.'"

Folding the newspaper over, Keegan glanced over at his Pokemon. "What do you think, Miju?"

"Sha?" Miju grabbed another piece of Pokemon food and said, "Osha wott wott sha?" before tossing the food into his mouth.

Cripes, Knightfall, what the heck is going on in that story!? What were those scientists doing to those Pokemon? I figure the first one is a Charizard, and just what happened to it that would make it that destructive?

I just wrote this because it's been floating in my mind since I woke up. Plus, this is a story I'm really interested in writing. I just have too many projects currently going to work on it.

Still, very few people have seen my work, and I haven't posted anything in nearly five years here, so...

--

With an sharp squeal that sounded nothing like him, the Pikachu huddled at the base of a tree. He faced his enemy. The creature barked, hot breath blasting the Pikachu in the face. The sound traveled along the ground to the Pikachu's feet, making him tremble. The beast opened its mouth. Sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight. It closed in on the Pikachu.

-- --

"'Police discovered the body of ten-year-old Kyle Pelter on the outskirts of Castelia City. It is not known yet how Pelter died. Police were only able to identify that the boy was from Nacrene City. Speaking to his family, it was revealed that that Pelter started his trainer's journey a few days ago. Further details will be revealed as soon as they are known.

"'The bodies of two unidentified men were also found near the body of Pelter. Police have determined the two men died from slashes on their bodies.'"

Folding the newspaper over, Keegan glanced over at his Pokemon. "What do you think, Miju?"

"Sha?" Miju grabbed another piece of Pokemon food and said, "Osha wott wott sha?" before tossing the food into his mouth.

It has been a while since I posted on PC. I randomly came across this thread.

So, wow, that's a dark fic in the making alright. I liked the description at the beginning. Is it a Houndoom that's attacking Pikachu? Since you called it a beast, I think Arcanine can fit the bill too. (It's funny how your avatar helped me visualize the scene with more ease :p)

Connecting the scene you have written I have come up with a theory that Pelter's Pokemon killed him and have escaped. There isn't much to comment yet :o
So is Keegan a new Pokemon trainer too or a detective of some sort?

I'm not sure how dark this fic is going to be. The plot for this did call for something dark to happen in the beginning. At first, I had thought about using shadow Pokemon from the GameCube games. But another idea came to mind, and I needed a trainer to be killed for the plot. Poor Kyle just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time for me.

Quote:

Is it a Houndoom that's attacking Pikachu? Since you called it a beast, I think Arcanine can fit the bill too. (It's funny how your avatar helped me visualize the scene with more ease :p)

Close! It's a Growlithe. And Pikachu is because Pikachu is one of my favorite Pokemon! But there are other reasons for these two Pokemon that are giant spoilers, so I'm moving the discussion away from these two!

Quote:

Connecting the scene you have written I have come up with a theory that Pelter's Pokemon killed him and have escaped. There isn't much to comment yet :o

Close! That's all I'm going to say about that.

Quote:

So is Keegan a new Pokemon trainer too or a detective of some sort?

A new trainer with...spoilers!

I'm quite excited about this story. If everything goes well, I should be writing it by this time next year. Hopefully.

I'm new to forums and particularly PC. I've been working on a story entitled "Adventures in Acirema" for about a month and a half now. It is posted on Fanfiction.net if anyone is interested in Chapters 2 & 3, I try to update every week/week and a half. The story follows Ash & Pikachu on there journey through a new region; based on the Anime. Here is Chapter 1:

Chapter 1: A New Friend

When the ship hit dock Ash was the first to hit land. He ran off with the same childish anticipation that he had the night before he had received his first Pokémon. Ash looked around in awe as he saw the many plazas filled with all types of shops and small restaurants. A flock of Wingull flew overhead and landed on the pier, cocking their heads side to side and waiting for the tourists to drop some food like they always did. All sorts of smells barricaded his nose as he took a deep breath of the salty air. His grin was ear to ear while he read the sign before him.

“Welcome to Mal, Acirema. We made it Pikachu, we’re in the Acirema Region!” shouted Ash with glee as tourists began to exit the ship and jostle him as they tried to get around him.

“Hey, watch it!” Ash exclaimed as he pushed his way through the thousands of tourists eager to see some sights. Ash, however, was not in Acirema for sight-seeing. He had only one thing on his mind.

“All right Pikachu, we have to find out where the nearest gym is,” said Ash as he darted around frantically.

“Perhaps you should ask a local. Look over there,” Pikachu pointed to a small shop at the end of one of the plazas. The shop was very plain looking and appeared to have two floors, the first floor being where things were sold and the top where the owner probably lived. Over the front window was a sign labeled Bicicletas.

“Bicicletas?” a very confused Ash read aloud. “What’s a Bicicleta?”

Pikachu did a face palm. “Look in the window. I swear if I didn’t love you I would leave your sorry ass on the street to die alone.”

“Ohhhhh,” said an enlightened Ash as he saw a shiny red bike in the window of the shop, “Why didn’t they just say Bikes?”

“Bicicleta means bicycle in Spanish, Ash. Mal is a city with a very large Hispanic population, so there will probably be several shops with signs like these,” explained Pikachu.

“Really…” replied Ash. He had never really met a Hispanic person before. He had heard of them and seen them in cartoons on T.V. They had really funny accents and spoke a really fast language he couldn’t understand.

“Ash!” Pikachu shook Ash and brought him back to the real world. “Come on, let’s go inside. The owner probably has some maps of the region or knows the land well.”

“Right, we’ve gotta find a gym soon!” Ash exclaimed as that same childish delight stirred up in him once again as he imagined all the battles he would soon have. Ash and Pikachu entered the shop and looked around. There were bikes everywhere! Bikes hanging from the ceiling, bikes on tables, and bikes lining the floor; there were so many that it was hard to walk through the shop. Suddenly, one bike caught his eye. He walked towards it and slowly ran his hand down the frame. The bike had red rims, an orange frame, and blue fenders.

“This is just like Misty’s bike…” Ash said to himself as he closed his eyes and smiled. He remembered all the good times he and Misty had together and even though she could be crazy sometimes, she was more than a friend to him. He couldn’t help a single tear rolling down his cheek.

“You like that bike, hombre?” asked a Hispanic man who began to walk up to Ash and Pikachu. He was about the same height as Ash, maybe a half inch shorter, and well built. He appeared to be in his late teens, Ash guessed he was about 19 or 20. He had short, buzz cut black hair and short stubble on his face. He wore a white wife beater tank top with khaki cargo shorts and sneakers. Ash noticed a small tattoo of a cross on the left side of his neck as he got closer. Ash quickly wiped the tear from his eye, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Eh, it’s not the most macho bike I’ve got at the shop, but it sure is durable. Hell, I bet it could take a shock or two from that Pikachu of yours!” exclaimed the man. The man then chuckled to himself a bit. Ash was a bit taken aback by the man’s statement, but quickly composed himself.

“Sorry, I’m not looking to buy this bike. It’s just that…well, this is a lot like the bike a friend of mine used to have…a very special friend of mine,” explained Ash.

“Oh, I see…was she pretty? I knew this girl once, her name was Natalia, sweetest thing. She loved bicicletas, oh man, me and her would spend hours riding bikes around the countryside. She had this long, raven-black hair that sailed with the wind as we rode. I met her in this very shop…” said the man as he became lost in thought.

“She wasn’t my girlfriend!” Ash snapped. The man was startled as he came out of his daze. He then smirked and nodded his head.

“Oh, I understand. She wasn’t your girlfriend just a “friend with benefits”. You two never got close but you sure did get close if you know what I’m talkin bout! I’ve had a few of those myself. They’re great if you just want to have sex but…you know, there’s a difference between havin’ sex and makin’ love. I’ve had a lot of sex, but the only time I ever actually made love was with Natalia. I miss that you know, having a girl whose your best friend that you can trust with everything. A girl who’s your whole world. And when you have sex, you’re not just having sex, your making love. You feel me, ese?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ash slowly replied, “but she wasn’t my friend with benefits either! She was just a friend. We traveled around together for a really long time and we never had sex or really did anything romantic; we were just really good friends. Can’t a guy and a girl just be friends?”

“No,” the man replied quickly.

“Why not?” Ash was surprised by the response.

“You must have had some kind of attraction to her?” asked the man.

“Well…we were really good friends and I did trust her a lot. But like I said, we never did anything. I was sad whenever she had to go back to Cerulean City to take over the gym, and she was especially upset when she had to leave,” Ash chuckled to himself for a bit, “We did get into a lot of arguments, but they were much ado about nothing, we were only ten you know. I guess since I was so young I hadn’t developed the part of me that would have let me fall in love with Misty. Now that I look back…” Ash paused, then closed his eyes again.

“Wow, it was that long ago?” asked the man who could clearly tell that the kid in front of him was no longer a ten.

“Yeah, I’m 18 so I should be over her by now but…I guess she just left an impression on me,” said Ash.

“I know how you feel, bro,” replied the man as he stared off into the distance, “I felt the same way with Natalia. We were the best of friends, like two peas in a Metapod. I…I know it sounds all mushy and **** but I really think we were meant for each other. But we had to go our separate ways and…hah, look at me! Having a heart-to-heart with some guy I don’t even know!” The man then stuck out his hand. “My name’s Emmanuel Ortiz, but my friends call my Manuel.”

“Whoa, wait a minute bro, are you kidding me right now? You’re THE Ash Ketchum! Oh man, you are, how did I not realize it before?” exclaimed Manuel.

“I’m assuming you’ve heard of me before,” said Ash who was now in his signature pose of closed eyes and a smile with his hand behind his head.

“Heard of you? Bro, you’re Ash Ketchum! You saved the world like a million times man! You’re a legend on the streets, you wouldn’t believe it. Ash Ketchum, in my shop, who woulda thought it. So what brings you to my humble little bike shop?” asked Manuel.

“Well, I’m here in Acirema to take on the Acirema Pokémon Championship. But I can’t do that until I get all 8 badges. So I’m looking for the nearest gym,” explained Ash.

“Hmm, sorry to say this but we don’t have a gym in Mal. However, there is a gym over in Goldpond Town,” Manuel pulled out a map and pointed to the city, “we are here in Mal, and Goldpond is there.”

“All the way there,” Ash frowned, “Well I guess I’d better get a move on then.”

“Yeah, you want a bike, ese? It’s going to be a long trip,” asked Manuel.

“Nah, I prefer to travel on foot. That way I get a good lay of the land and catch some Pokémon while I’m at it. The only Pokémon I have with me right now is Pikachu. I left all the others back at the lab with Professor Oak so I could get a fresh start,” Ash explained.

“You know, I’ve never been to Kanto and Pikachu aren’t indigenous to Acirema, so I’ve never seen one before,” said Manuel as he petted Pikachu behind her ears. Pikachu smiled at the friendly man’s touch.

“Indigenous?” asked Ash, once again confused. Manuel laughed.

“Sorry, I forgot, they say you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed. It means that Pikachu aren’t found in the wild here. This isn’t their natural habitat,” explained Manuel with a smile.

“Hey!” Ash got a little defensive. “I may not be the smartest, but I’m a damn good battler!”

“So I’ve heard,” replied Manuel.

“By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have a phone here would you? It may sound a little childish but I have to call my mom. I always give her a call when I get to a new region, she worries if I don’t,” said Ash with a slight blush.

“No problem man, I know how it is. Mi mama would get muy nerviosa if I didn’t call her every once in a while. The phones over in the corner,” Manuel pointed to the back corner of the room. Ash and Pikachu walked over to the phone and dialed the number. Delia appeared on the screen.

“Hi Ash, how are you honey?” she asked with a smile.

“I’m fine mom, how are things back at home?” Ash replied.

“Well, I just burned a batch of cookies so I’m not so happy about that. Other than that everything’s just like it always is, you know Pallet,” answered Delia. Suddenly, a loud crash was heard in the background followed by a groan.

“What was that!” asked Ash. No sooner had the question left his lips did Professor Oak appear on the screen.

“Sorry about that Delia, I tripped over Mr. Mime’s foot,” said Oak with a slight blush, “Oh, is that Ash?”

“Sure is, hey Professor Oak, how are things back at the lab?”

“Quite busy actually, I’ve been selected to host the annual Research and Development Conference this year. I haven’t hosted in a while so your mother and I along with Tracey and Gary have been frantically getting the lab ready for all the brilliant minds that will be making their way into town within the next week,” explained Oak.

“Really? Sounds like fun, too bad I can’t be there,” said Ash.

“I know, but research isn’t your thing so you would probably grow bored of it after a while. That reminds me of a poem: A Magicarp on land is out of its element. So too, is a Trainer in a lab,” Ash sweat dropped while Oak just grinned at his self-proclaimed genius, “Well, I’d better head back to the lab to check on Tracey and Gary. Goodbye Ash,” said Professor Oak.

“All right, but make it quick. I’m just itching for a battle!” exclaimed Ash.

“Ok, how about I go upstairs and pack, while you go to the Pokemart for some supplies?” asked Manuel. Ash nodded. Manuel quickly scribbled out a list of supplies and handed Ash some cash. “That should be enough, don’t take too long though,” said Manuel.

“Don’t worry, I won’t!” exclaimed Ash as he grabbed the money and darted out the door, eager to start his next journey with his new friend.

Well, here's the prologue to a novella I just finished, Cower. The whole book needs to be reworked, but I still think that this is pretty solid.

By the way, it gets a bit murky . . . and dark. Quite literally and figuratively.

Spoiler:

------
Dovecot, it’s a city of false imagery and broken promises. Not too long ago, the name of it used to mean something. People held high hopes entering a land full of intellectual promise. They’d think to themselves, “this is a nice slice of the world” as they found things to be much more trustworthy than they actually were. The city was made with trust in mind. It was made to be a nice place. Unfortunately, things aren’t always what they were made out to be. And over the course of a few years, people soon found that much out about Dovecot.

The truth behind the city was that it was a cesspool of evil intent and inexcusable crimes. Days went on where people would find their house emptied after a night out. Not a single thing was left. Citizens started losing that trust really fast. Soon, it got to the point where going outside at night was taboo, forbidden by those unable to risk the chance of losing anything. The streets remained clear for a time, but it didn’t stop things from happening the way they did. Murderers, thieves, aggressors, they increased in numbers. It seemed like anyone who took a step outside during the night was bound to come across adversity. After a while, having nightlife meant being a risky person or being a criminal.

For Johnny, it was the latter. He considered himself professional. He’d poach his targets for a while. Noting whenever they’d leave their house, he’d make his move. Over the last few months, he’d been getting exceedingly better at it. He could tell when a person was leaving for a night out or when they were just making a store trip. At times, he’d drive behind them to make sure they drove far enough. When they did, he would make a left and return to their building.

He used to have a team, but they got greedy. The months of free money would do that to anyone. He decided that he had the resources need to carry out things by his self. Whatever he couldn’t carry out on his own, he’d leave behind. Luckily for Johnny, that wasn’t much. Maybe there was a dresser or a refrigerator he couldn’t take, but there were always the clothes and the food. His truck held most stuff with room to spare. Check it into a locker the next day, sell what you could, then repeat the process. Things were easy enough for him to make a living. And living was never better.

The problem that the city had was also its biggest export: Intellect. Dovecot was a cesspool of ingenuity and thought. Unfortunately, criminals were getting smarter as well. Johnny had plenty of intellect. If it weren’t for the difficulties of the hiring process, Johnny often thought he could make it big in big in the industrial world. He always kept track of time, he was prompt in his movements and he never bit off more than he could chew. Yes, it seemed like Johnny would never get his come-upping. However, the thing about crime, it never promises anything. That’s why people would tell you it’s not a promising career. That probably explains why he’s hanging by legs over a nice, mahogany table. He knows mahogany; he’s taken his fair share of it.

How he got there was a more painful question than the sore spot on the back of his head. As the blur left his vision, he started to recognize where he was. It was his storage locker. The mahogany table was his. Well, it was one that he stole, per say. No more than inches above the table, he tried to move his hands. Something cold and hard had been restricting them, he could only guess chains. He tried wiggling for his freedom, not seeing the futility in it. Suddenly, he heard a noise. The silence after the sound froze his cold heart. Tears began to streak across his forehead before touching his hair. He cried out to his captor, his voice apologetic.

“Hello? Anyone? Please, let me down! Please!”

He screamed out from the top of his lungs. He couldn’t see anyone beyond 3 feet of himself due to the light he was hanging under. Darkness surrounded him. It frightened him. It made him cringe. Before, it was his friend, helping him creep through the houses undetected. Now it became an audience, surrounding him, waiting for the climax of his night. For a moment, all was quiet. The darkness was still. Then, a man walked out from the shadows. Johnny was glad he saw opportunity once he realized the man wasn’t wearing a uniform. Not a lot of people would side with the police at this time.

Things went wrong, however, when he noticed the right hand of the man clenching a kitchen knife. Suddenly, his tears flowed on double time. He preferred the police in this moment. Anyone would. Though he hoped that it was all a misunderstanding, looking into the eyes of his captor, he saw clarity unlike any other. It was surety. Whatever that man came to do, he had no doubt in it. Words began to escape the sturdy face he’d given.

“You’re probably wondering, ‘How did I get here?’ You ask yourself, ‘What did I do to get here?’ But that’s not the problem you should be worrying about. What you should be worrying about is getting back on your feet.”

Johnny was scared stiff. The man spoke like some sort of narrator, but everything he said sounded like some philosophical garbage.

“Please, man, just let me down. I’ll give you whatever you want. I have televisions, dressers, coffee makers, money, whatever you need. Please just let me down.” Johnny’s words were barely audible at the end. It was mostly replaced by a mixture of words and whimpering. Tears began to drip from his hair to the table.

The man looked at Johnny eye to eye after hearing his heartfelt words. He gave off a fiendish smirk. With a chuckle, he continued his speech.

“Sometimes, you find it hard to maintain. You’re upside-down and you can feel the pressure on your brain. You’re strung up and you need to get down. So, what do you do?” His stern voice heightened Johnny’s fears.

He walked closer to Johnny, coming within a reachable distance.

“Well, what you need to do it hold your back straight and get cracking,” he said as he put his hand on the back of his captive. “And what if that doesn’t work?”

He steadied the swinging Johnny with his hand, bringing the other hand and the knife in it to Johnny’s stomach.

“Well, that means the weight is too much and you need to put it all on the table.”

The knife plunged into the bottom Johnny’s abdomen as the cut was made towards his head, stopping short of his rib cage. Johnny’s screams were ignored as the man reached into his body, forcibly pulling his organs until they would fall to the table. Soon, he couldn’t hear Johnny’s screams anymore. And that’s where he stopped. Blood spilled onto the table along with the parts pulled from Johnny’s body.

The man stood for a moment and admired his work. The look on Johnny’s face was exactly what he wanted from it all. The sheer displeasure as tears forced themselves from his red, puffy eyes was pleasing. The agony of having his body scooped out, picked fresh like a vegetable, it satisfied the mysterious man. The blood from his cavity began to cover his face as it fell on the mahogany. The crimson mask preserved the last look of horror from the Johnny.

He took two fingers and dipped them into the pool of blood. He began writing numbers on the wall, dipping a second time to make sure the numbers were clearly legible. After making an underline with the leftover blood on his fingers, he began walking towards the exit of the locker before speaking his final words.

“And after you do all of that, I assure you, you’ll feel so much better than you did before. Hey, nothing feels better than relieving yourself of dead weight.”

I'm reviving this thread because I have writing that I want to share. Although I know that there is one person who's been waiting for something from this story, I'm posting this here to share with others. Also, there's a hope that if this thread is revived, others will post in it as well.

The story is the first book in the series collectively titled Long Twilight Struggle, and the first book is Heirs of the First Revolution. It's a rewrite of Digimon Adventure 02. This project could be considered my pet project, as it's the one I put the most work into.

The scene under the spoiler isn't actually a spoiler. It's a random scene that came to mind when I started working on the first chapter, and I have no idea where to put it. So there's no context, though it will make some sense to those who are Digimon fans, naturally.

Spoiler:

And there, scuttling among the army, was Wormmon. Disgusting Wormmon. Weak Wormmon. The little bug was everything BlackGreymon hated. He was a sniveling boot-hugger, following the Kaiser around, tugging at his cape and begging for a second of attention. BlackGreymon stayed out of the Kaiser's way. He stood near his special forces and watched as Wormmon cried for the Kaiser's attention.

“Master! Master! It's getting close to dinnertime! Shouldn't you-”

The Kaiser whipped around. He said nothing. Wormmon didn't even deserve that much. The only answer the pathetic Digimon received was a kick that send him sailing into the air battling unit. A Unimon snorted at Wormmon.

BlackGreymon smiled. He knew it would be a good day when Wormmon went flying. It meant the Kaiser was ready for a new challenge. BlackGreymon prepared his troops for battle.

Wow, this thread is literally beyond perfect. I just got finished writing the first chapter of an upcoming story, and while I don't have enough of the plot ironed out enough to comfortably continue yet, I still really wanna share chapter one.

So here it is; the first dredge-- I mean draft of That Story (working title).

--

Flora Charbonneau stepped out of Nuvema Mart with a bag full of groceries, a face full of sunset, and not an awful lot else. She came to rest on a sidewalk that stretched infinitely in both directions.

The streets in the rural town of Nuvema were long, cracked, and barren, and for the most part one could walk right along the side of the road without facing any real danger – Nuvema was the kind of town that made everything within city limits move slow, even the traffic. Perhaps that was why the sun still hadn’t set yet. When it did, she would be able to climb onto her flat-ish roof with a lantern and some snacks and have a Meteor Party.

All alone.

By herself.

The Sternberg Shower passed around Unova once every five years. The last time Flora had seen it, she was twelve, and she sat on her roof and watched just the way she was going to tonight; but when she was twelve, she’d had Cheren and Bianca with her. The three of them were inseparable. Best friends, from the day they met to the day they left. Cheren was a Gym Leader in Aspertia now, Bianca was halfway through her high-school career at the newly-founded Unity Tower Academy for Pokémon Science, they were both national heroes for their work in the Team Plasma Investigation of two years ago, and at the great age of seventeen, Flora was still watching meteors on her rooftop.

But the alternative was taking another run through the countryside, and Flora was still kind of sore from the one she did this morning.

She began walking back to her home. Nuvema was mostly designed around one main street; a highway, off of which the rest of the buildings and roads sprang from, like branches growing from the tree. She turned off the main drag onto a side road, made of packed dirt, and soon enough found herself standing in front of the large but worn-down building she called her home.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, Flora could feel excitement swelling in her chest. No matter who she spent it with, the Meteor Party was still a very important event, and it was not to be spent moping. Flora bypassed her mother on the way in; she dropped most of her bags on their kitchen table, but kept one for herself – that was her snack bag for later tonight, filled with all her favourite goodies (and some of Bianca and Cheren’s, when she found that she couldn’t resist buying them as well).

“Thanks,” her mother said, immediately hovering over to peck through the bags. “What’d the total come to?”

Without answering, Flora handed her the remaining Poké from the shopping excursion (her own donation having been spent on candy). Flora’s mother didn’t especially care how Flora presented it to her, as long as she wasn’t stealing anything from the total amount – and the two of them were much too close for one to even imagine stealing from the other.

Even if Flora hadn’t been talking as much lately.

She assisted her mother quickly with putting away the groceries, and then took her own bag down the hall to her bedroom. At the very end of the hall was a sign, hanging from knobs in the door; it said FLORA in large letters, a memento from her younger years that the girl never really had the heart to take down.

Flora’s room, much like her door, hadn’t changed a lot since the two of them moved here when Flora was nothing but a little girl. The ceiling was still very low; it was getting to the point where she couldn’t help but notice how close her head was getting to the top. The furniture, also, had not changed, though it had been repainted so that the pink and purple flowers had turned into a nice, calm white. It wasn’t the world’s classiest bedroom – nor was it the world’s classiest house – but it functioned.

Flora dropped the bag of goodies on her desk thoughtlessly as she walked in, and did not bother to stop walking once she made it inside; instead, she continued trooping right along, allowing herself to finally fall face first onto her bed at the opposite end of the room.

It was the night of the Meteor Party, and as quickly as she had gained drive to climb up to her roof and set up, it was gone.

Flora rolled around rather lamely on her mattress. She could see a neat pile in the corner of all the things she was going to need for the Meteor Party, not counting food; she had organized it several days ago. There was a blanket, because things fell on rooftops that you did not want to sit on. There was a lantern, for when you had to come down and you might not be able to see your way. There was a pack of matches, for lighting said lantern. And... well, in reality that was all you actually needed for a Meteor Party, because it was kind of hard to play games or do anything of that nature when you could barely see and there were massive rocks flying through the sky.

Idly, Flora reached onto her bedside table and groped around for her X-transceiver, which she then threw on top of the pile. Her aim was perfect, and it landed harmlessly on the soft, squishy blanket. Maybe, she thought idly, Cheren or Bianca would call her tonight. Not that they’d done so at any other point in the past two years, but… well, tonight was special, wasn’t it? It was the night of the Meteor Party. They can’t forget the Meteor Party.

She hoped against hope that they wouldn’t forget the goddamn Meteor Party, and continued to do this for about twenty minutes, staring vacantly at the ceiling until her mother called her down for dinner.

And after dinner, of course, was when you climb to the roof.

The ladder was old and rusted in some parts; it had come attached to the house, and that fact was what made Flora’s place the Meteor Party destination. All of the moms felt somewhat safer knowing that Flora’s roof was designed for people to get up on it. Flora put her items in a backpack, and scaled the ladder alone with it on her back; once up there, she set out the blanket and a few rocks to keep the edges from flying off, which she had to go back down to get – it would have been much harder in the darkness.

The girl looked up; as it was, shadows were falling fast, so she scampered back up the ladder and settled herself on the blanket again. It was a really cute one, with Mareeps leaping along on countless rolling hills. The thing was old, extremely old, which was why Flora was allowed to put it on the roof; but design-wise, it remained one of the family favourites.

So Flora settled down, ripped open a fresh bag of ruffle chips, and waited.

She waited for the meteors; she waited for Cheren and Bianca; she probably even kind of waited for her neighbor to start screaming at her to get off the roof, because she was going to SLIP AND FALL AND CRACK HER SKULL AND DIE. (For some peculiar reason, most of his sentences tended to have ‘…and die!’ at the end. It was probably valuable information to know that he was approaching seventy-five years old, and therefore had a completely legitimate reason to scream about people dying all the time – but like most elderly people, it made him no less annoying, only harder to call out on how annoying he was.)

The point was, Flora Charbonneau was waiting. She kept waiting for quite a long time.

And then, it began.

The first one was small. Unremarkable, as far as meteors went; it could have been some piece of starstuff, or a space Pokémon floating aimlessly across the sky, for all the average viewer cared. But then there was another one, slightly larger. And another one, slightly larger than that. Soon enough, the night sky was alight as clear as day with a ceaseless rain of meteors.

Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Flora was taken back in time. She was no closer to the meteorfall than she was at twelve years old, but her mind had changed so much in the past five years that the memories, in their burning intensity, were beginning to singe her skin. Underneath these meteors, all three of them had daydreamed about what they would do when they turned fourteen and were finally allowed to enter the world they really wanted to be in – the world of Pokémon. She still remembered their aspirations, individually.

Bianca, as usual, wanted to be the friend to all living things. Cheren wanted to be the Champion of the Pokémon League, a spot which no one in Nuvema ever doubted he could achieve, if he put his mind to it. And Flora herself was a wild girl at heart; she was happiest when she was up and moving and out in nature, exploring uncharted lands with a team of very powerful friends.

It almost felt as if she was regressing, back to a time where she was allowed to dream of Pokémon – where she could look forward to doing something with her life, anything, that amounted to more than Senior S**t-Shoveler. It was such an empowering feeling.

On a whim, she sat up and grabbed her X-transceiver, and punched in Cheren’s number; she had it memorized.

The machine had hardly rung once before Flora was greeted with the visage of a friend she hadn’t seen in two years, and the smile on her face didn’t do a great job of hiding that unexpected punch in the gut.

He was growing his hair out, and that wasn’t the only thing; she was positive his face had gotten more angular, a lot more angular, since she last saw him. He was wearing what appeared to be a freshly-pressed button up shirt, and behind him was a big old Pokémon League logo, plastered on the wall. He was in his Gym.

“Flora!” he asked, eyebrows rising. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hey,” she said, after several failed attempts.

Cheren faltered. This was obviously awkward for him – of course it was awkward for him, Flora couldn’t think of why it wouldn’t be, and she really wasn’t helping. “Flora? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she responded weakly. “Doing okay. You know, the meteors are out tonight… got nostalgic…” And then, without knowing where it came from: “…Sorry. I’m bothering you.”

“No you’re not,” Cheren responded, far too quickly for it to be a genuine answer. Obviously his stint as a Gym Leader had taught him a lot about how to be insincere in order for others to feel better. “You’re not bothering me, I promise – as a matter of fact, I was just thinking of you.”

Flora felt an electric power, rising through her spine. There was hope. He was thinking about her—

“I know the League Challenge takes a long time, but I had been wondering when you would get here.”

The electricity solidified, and turned to lead.

Flora sat there with her mouth slightly open, the meteors falling to earth behind her. It was hard to look at Cheren, all professional and grown-up – he was a real adult now, running his own Gym, one of the youngest Gym Leaders in Unova history. Bianca was the same way. She was probably in a classy, cute outfit somewhere, riding on a glass-bottom boat in the middle of a cerulean ocean to look at the Water Pokémon in their natural habitats.

Dimly, she shut off the X-transceiver, hopefully before Cheren could see the tears pooling up in her eyes. She then threw it, far into the street, hoping a meteor would fall on it and destroy it forever. She didn’t care; there was no reason for her to even have an X-transceiver. was there? After all, there was only two numbers in that damn thing besides her own, and they clearly couldn’t be bothered with her anymore.

It was a waste of time.

Flora felt a horrible, acidic satisfaction when a car drove down the road, crunching her X-transceiver under the tires. She never liked it, anyway. It was an old model, and she’d picked the colours when she was like, twelve.

“Well,” she said finally after the car had passed, “guess that’s the end of that.” She laughed shakily, collapsed onto her back again, wrapped herself in the blanket, and began to cry, the meteors becoming nothing but blurry dots beyond her perception.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep.

Because the next time Flora awoke, the meteors were still flying across the night-time sky, and nothing was beautiful and everything hurt.

--

(I haven't written anything in a very long time, so any input would be appreciated.)

"Wurmple!" Kairi's Wurmple ran at a tree and tackled it, hurting his head in the process.

The girl looked to her Pokemon and sighed. "This is so boring," she complained, "There isn't a wild Pokemon in sight anywhere. And it's so hot today I can't stand it."

"Pika," Pikachu yawned, agreeing with her. Sweat poured down the small rodent's body. Pikachu looked like he was going to pass out any minute now.

Kairi recalled Wurmple into his Poke Ball and turned towards Paul. "How much further until we get to Pewter City?"

Paul pulled the map out of his backpack. He looked it over and told her, "Seems we still have quite a ways to go." He folded it back up, putting it back into his bag.

"How much longer is quite a ways?" She asked him. She had her hat off. It was in her bag and her hair was up in two high ponytails, so that she could get it off of her sweaty neck.

"How should I know. About a day maybe." Paul was wearing a blue tee-shirt and blue jean shorts. The hot weather seemed to be bothering him as well. Seemed Kanto had unusual weather. One day it's kinda cool and then the next day it's roasting hot. It felt like it was maybe 100 outside today. But to Kairi and Paul it felt like it was even hotter then that.

"A day!" Kairi yelled, collapsing down onto the ground, her legs spare out on either side of her. It was almost like she was trying to do a split with her legs bent back a bit. "I don't think I can make it that long." She whined as she complained about how hot she was. She then started yelling, "I want some ice cream!"

"Quit acting like a child," Paul told her.

"But I am a kid. I'm 12 years old," she told him.

"Right, you're 12 years old. So act like it! 12 is only one year away from 13. So get up from the ground and quit acting like a baby," he told her. "Or I'll leave you behind."

Just then though Kairi got an idea. She ran over to a tree where she had her bag resting while she had been training Wurmple. "I have a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner."

"What are you doing?" Paul asked her, seeing Kairi dig through her bag.

"Can you turn around for a minute while I change clothes?" She asked.

"Hn, fine." Paul turned around and so did Pikachu. He heard the noises of Kairi changing. After she told him he could turn around he saw his friend in a lime green bakini with dark pink scraps. "Why are you in your bathing suit?"

"This is why?" She smiled brightly pulling out Oshawott's Poke Ball from her bag.

"Osha!" Oshawott cried as he appeared from his Poke Ball.

"Oshawott, aim your Water Gun directly upwards so that the water sprays on me as if it's raining," she ordered.

"Oshawott," her Pokemon grinned, doing as ordered. He pointed his head up straight at the sky and sprayed out his Water Gun attack.

"So, that's what you're doing," Paul told her.

"Yup!" Kairi grinned. "Why not join me. You look like you need cooling off as much as I do."

"Come on Paul. Don't be such a stick in the mud." She kept trying to pull on the boy's arm.

"No means no Kairi. I said no and I mean no," he told her. He yanked his arm out of her grasp and went to sit down under a tree. "Tell me when you're ready to leave." He then closed his eyes to relax. His arms were leaned upwards, resting behind his head.

Kairi gave him a stern look. She was fed up with his stubborn attitude towards her and decided for once to take action. She turned towards her Oshawott who was still spraying his Water Gun up into the air. She pointed at Paul's face and told him, "Water Gun."

Paul jumped to his feet. "That's it, choose your Pokemon. We're battling and I'm not taking no for an answer!" He yelled at her. Seemed he was very pissed off at her.

"What's the matter Paul? Can't take a joke?" Kairi giggled. She looked down at her Pokemon. "Right Pikachu?"

"Pika pika," Pikachu was giggling, his hands on his mouth as he laughed with his eyes closed. Oshawott blinked a bit before he too broke out in giggles.

"I don't find it very funny! Shut up!" Paul demanded angrily.

"Okay, fine. I do need to train my Wurmple anyway." Kairi recalled Oshawott and pulled Wurmple's Poke Ball back out and let the worm Pokemon back out. He appeared in a flash of light looking confused wondering why he was called back out again so soon.

"I guess I'll have to use mine as well." Paul pulled out a Poke Ball. And after making it grapefruit sized he threw it. "Wurmple, stand by for battle!" His Wurmple also appeared in a bright flash of light. The two Pokemon stared each other down before Paul called out,"Poison Sting."

"You use Poison Sting as well," Kairi told her Wurmple.

"Wurm?" Her Pokemon gave her a confused look.

"What? I said use Poison Sting! Don't look at me like that!" She demanded. As she was crying out for her Pokemon to attack the other Wurmple shot it with its own Poison Sting hitting it and making Kairi's Wurmple cry out in pain.

"Wurmple! Why didn't you listen to me?" Kairi asked him.

"Check your Pokedex. It probably doesn't know that attack. Not all Pokemon know the same moves," Paul told her.

She nodded and pulled out her Pokedex, checking her Wurmple's stats. "This Wurmple can use Tackle and String Shot," the Pokedex told her.

"Uh...what? Hey! That's not fair! How come yours can use it?" She wondered, as she shut her Pokedex, putting it back up into her bag.

"I told you, that's why you should..." Paul stopped as there were two flashes of light. Both Wurmples were evolving at the same time.

"Wow! Double evolution," Kairi grinned. As the two evolved they both looked a bit different though. She pulled out her Pokedex pointing it at her's.

The Pokedex beeped and said, "Silcoon, the Cocoon Pokémon. Silcoon is the evolved form of Wurmple. Using its thread to attach itself to a tree branch, it waits to evolve to its next stage. When it grows thirsty, it drinks the dew that collects on its string."

Paul pulled out his own Pokedex and for once used it, pointing it at his own Pokemon. "Now let's see what you are."

His Pokedex beeped as it said out loud, "Cascoon, the Cocoon Pokemon. If it is attacked, Cascoon remains motionless however badly it may be hurt. It does so because if it were to move, its body would be weak upon evolution. This Pokémon will also not forget the pain it endured."

Both trainers put their Pokedexes away. "Why didn't our Pokemon both evolve into the same Pokemon?" Kairi wondered.

"Wurmple is unlike most Pokemon. According to the Pokedex it has two evolutions and it's random which one it takes," Paul told her.

I'm a rather new, aspiring author. I've only written a few fan-fictions before, mostly about my frequently played action titles. However, I wanted to try my hand at a Pokemon fiction, and before I post up a thread an embarrass myself, I figured I'd post my prologue here.

Let me know what you think about it, and whether or not I should continue with the story. I do have a few chapters typed up already to go along with this one, I just want to know if the idea is solid and not really cliche.

Also be warned, there is some minor words in this prologue. The story will might have some more harsher words, but they won't be a constant thing. I promise.

Harmonized Disarray
by Mister Oshawott

Prologue: A Fateful Encounter.

"Remind me again, what is it you said your name was?" The teacher sat behind his mahogany desk, his fist nestled beneath his chin, his eyes dull and bored out of his mind.

"Clayton," The young trainer in front of him replied. "My name is Clayton."

"Katherine." She nodded, the Lillipup in her hands squirming with joy.

The teacher sighed, passing forward two laminated pieces of plastic, each with Clayton and Katherine's respective pictures and names on each. His responsibilities as a teacher, for the moment, were finally over.

"Congratulations students, go out and see the world." The man said, waving the two beaming students off.

--------------

Katherine and Clayton walked out of the school, blinded instantly from the sun's rays reflecting off of the radio tower in the far off distance. Clayton paused for a moment, gazing at the building. Not only did it act as a radio tower for the Unovian air-transport system, but it was also the Mistralton Pokemon Gym.

"I know you didn't. It's just been so difficult since Dad moved to Kanto."

"Silph Co. moved to Saffron City. That's huge." Katherine remarked, looking down at the mini dog in her arms. "Perhaps, when Candy and I go out on our adventure, we could catch you one and send it to you?"

"That won't be necessary. I've been saving up for some pokeballs of my own. I'll go out tomorrow and see what I can catch."

"It's dangerous to go alone." Katherine put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go out with you tomorrow morning, Candy and I'll protect you."

"That's not a good start for an official Trainer." Katherine mused, shaking her head. "Seven it is. See you then."

Clayton watched her walk away, her brown hair bouncing gently off of her shoulder blades with each step she took. The two had always been friends since they were young, but she's always remarked how she wanted to be his rival as well. That the two of them would battle when they both became trainers. Shaking his head, Clayton stared off into the direction of the Gym one last time, before he began the walk home.

--------

Clayton gently closed the door, the sound of his mother's Herdier barking muffled in the back of the house. She had another late night working at the gym it would seem. Clayton gently laid his backpack onto the couch and crept into the kitchen, his Mother's Purrloin mewing contently, gulping down some Miltank milk. Lightly placing his hand on it's head, Clayton gently scratched the cat behind it's massive ears, as it purred with delight.

Opening the refrigerator door, Clayton wrapped his massive hands around a jar of Bronzong's Special Elixer. One thing not many people knew was that Clayton had a gift. This stuff was expensive, but it kept him in check. Opening the lid, he took a brief gulp, as the liquid oozed down his throat. To those like him, it tasted like a chocolate milkshake, but for him, it was the consistency of one, but tasted as bland as cardboard. He replaced the jar onto the shelf once more, turning to face the living room.

Purrloin nodded, jumping off of the table and onto the floor, curling up by the couch. Clayton closed the door behind him, as the sight of his mother startled him. She looked like a mess, but her warm, welcoming smile filled his heart with ease.

"Clayton, congratulations!" She said softly, clearly she was suffering another one of her migraines.

"Thanks."

"I have a gift to celebrate your milestone." She said, ducking back into her bedroom again, pulling a bag with a bow tie wrapped around it.

I'll be damned. She actually DID get me a Pokemon. Clayton thought to himself, accepting the bag with a smile.

However, when the bag opened, instead of an occupied Pokeball, he found a small, calculator sized machine. Lifting it, it's front hatch slid open, and a scanner activated on the back.

"Hello, Trainer. I am DEX MK-5. The new generation of Pokedex software! Please insert your credentials into the interface."

Clayton stared, wide-eyed at the machine.

"Mom, this is a new Pokedex. Not even Katherine has this model!"

His mother smiled and nodded, grasping at her head, easing herself onto the couch.

"It's a gift from your Father." She smiled. "Silph Co. has yet to release this on the market. You got an executive's model. You'll have features that not many other trainers will have at their disposal."

"I'll send him a message on my PokeGear and be sure to thank him." Clayton beamed, entering his credentials into the machine.

"There is one other thing." She smiled. "Buster, c'mere boy!"

The sound of paws thudding across the linolium meant that the Herdier was inbound, and was ready to kiss the hat off of Clayton's face. The Herdier stopped short of the trainer, sitting pretty, a rather big package on it's collar. Clayton pat the dog on the head, opening the box. Inside, ten tiny poke-balls gleamed in the light.

"This is great!" Clayton said with a smirk, but then looked over to his mother in concern. "How could we afford this?"

"Technically, we couldn't."

"How did you get these?" Clayton asked, intent on getting an answer.

"I bought them." She said with a shrug. "I just worked over-time for the past four weeks to gain the necessary funds."

"Mom, you really shouldn't work this har-"

"-I'll be fine Clayton!" She snapped, before calming herself, tears welling in her eyes. "So, tomorrow is the big day, huh?"

"Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be sure to call frequently.” He smiled, staring down at his new equipment. “Thanks again."

“There’s a little more upstairs in your room. I figured at the age of eighteen you wouldn’t need me to help you with it. Go on ahead sweet heart, I’m going to go lay down for a while.”

Clayton stood, gently hugging his mother once more, before creeping up the stairs to his bedroom. Opening the door, his posters of the Unova Elite Four members littered the wall, along with his personal collection of Training books. On his bed was a backpack, much more newer than the ratty one on his back. Replacing all of the objects in his old bag to his new one, he was surprised to see a new uniform inside. Pulling it out, it was a leather jacket, a white t-shirt, some finger-less leather gloves, and two pairs of khakis. Clayton knew that four weeks of over-time could afford a lot more than just ten Pokeballs.

Donning the clothes, Clayton looked in the mirror. Despite the gruff expression on his face, he was a gentle and kind young man. He had a strong jaw, kind blue eyes, and short brown hair. He also was a bit of a giant, standing at a massive six feet, eight inches tall. His build was one of a strong young man, abnormally so due to his body size. Fitting a trainer's belt around his waist, he took no time hitching the unoccupied poke-balls to his hips, placing the remaining four into his bag for safe keeping.

Laying down on the bed, Clayton closed his eyes, as thunder exploded in the sky, and the rain pattered down on the roof above him.

--------------

It wasn't long before Clayton was up again. It was the fourth time that night, and the sun had fully gone down over the horizon at this point, so he knew it was late. Pausing, Clayton looked around, before laying down on the bed once more.

"HELP ME!!!"

"THERE'S NO USE RUNNING, RODENT!"

Clayton jolted himself awake again. Shaking his head, he stood, clenching his fists, something wasn’t right, and those voices were right outside. Charging down the stairs, Clayton was sure to bring his bag with him, in case he needed it. Rain continued to pour down, Clayton ripped the door open, charging out into the storm.

Reaching the forest’s edge, his foot met a wet patch of mud, and he slid a good foot before falling onto his back.

"Help me, please!"

"SHUT UP! NOBODY'S GONNA SAVE YOU!"

Clayton stood once again, the wind becoming much more fierce, the thunder roaring overhead. Heading into the woods, Clayton stood in shock, screams of pain echoing from the thicket in front of him. Cutting through it, he saw a pair of wild Herdier's snapping their jaws at a young Pikachu. It looked up at him pleadingly, as Clayton lifted a stone high above his head.

"Get out of here!" Clayton barked, as the Herdier's neck fur stood up on edge, the two dogs turning, teeth bared.

"Looks like we've got a meddlesome human on our case," One of them snapped it's jaws at him. "He'll make a fine DESSERT!"

Clayton stiffened, as the other dog moved to flank him. Everything was still for a moment, minus the endless downpour.

One of the Herdiers pounced at the trainer, as the Human swept his foot in a kick, launching the dog back into a tree. Throwing the stone at the other one, he pegged the second Herdier in the snout, which only managed to anger it. The two dogs pounced at once, as a bolt of electricity shot towards them, knocking the two out cold. Clayton turned to the Pikachu, who could barely stand on it's hind paws. Running over to it, Clayton fell to his knees, cradling it's head with his hands.

"You'll be fine. I'll get you to a Pokemon Center. We'll make you well again." Before Clayton could lift the mouse, it jolted him, causing him to lose his grip.

Clayton could tell by the notch in it's tail that this was a female Pikachu, and she was clearly protecting something.

"Pichu." Was all that she could say, before her body went limp in his hands.

Clayton lowered the Pikachu to the ground, gently brushing it's hair. Looking over into the bush, he could see precisely what the Herdiers were after, and why she didn't want to leave. Hidden in a strategically made nest was a yellow and brown egg. Pulling the spare scarf off of his neck, Clayton wrapped the egg in the cloth, and placed it in the safety of his bag. Lifting the Pikachu's body, Clayton decided to give her a proper burial, so as not to be eaten by the Herdiers that had attacked her.

Placing his bag in the warmth of his home, gentle on the couch, he grabbed his mother's spade and the box that once held his Running Shoes. Placing her body gently in the box, Clayton dug her a hole right next to the forest's edge, placing the box in the hole ceremoniously. Covering the box with dirt, the thunder boomed over head once more, and he shivered. Grabbing a few twigs, he fashioned a cross and planted it in the dirt.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, I could've saved both the egg and you," Clayton said. "I'll be sure to protect your child with everything I have. You have my word on that."

He stood there for a moment, hoping his words sunk in to the deceased's soul, before he walked back into his house. Pulling the egg from his bag, he wrapped it in a towel, placing it under the same lamp that his Mother had used to hatch Buster when he was just a Lillipup, which now resided in his bedroom.

Clayton sat there in wonder for a moment, until his eyes started to droop. Working his way over to the bed, he closed his eyes, and thought for a moment of what had just transpired, before his exhaustion finally overtook him.

__________________

Thanks for reading the above post!Big thanks to Maxresh for signature image

I'm going to guess that you'll have more explanation on Clayton's condition in future chapters? Right now, I want to guess that he had something done to him to make him massive and able to understand Pokemon, and I wonder if the Silph Company had anything to do with it.

There are some grammar issues in this. You use the wrong "its" for possession. When you want to denote that "it" is owning something, you use "its." "It's" with the apostrophe is the contraction for "it is." A good way to help you remember is saying the sentence to yourself using "it is" in the spot where you want to use the word. If the sentence makes sense, then you use "it's." If it doesn't, then it's, well, "its."

Dialogue punctuation is another thing.

Quote:

"Congratulations students, go out and see the world." The man said, waving the two beaming students off.

Here, you want the full stop after "world" to be a comma, and the "the" before "man" to be lower-case, since you're using a dialogue tag like "said."

Quote:

"Tomorrow at six o'clock?" She asked expectantly.

Just like here, you have "she" in lower-case because "asked" is a dialogue tag. That's the only change you make when using question marks or exclamation marks.

You have a good start here for a fanfic. If you work a little on the grammar, that'll help. There's no reason for you not to continue, and I hope that you'll post more of your story when you're ready.

We tend to be our own worse critics. I always think my writing is horrible, and post it expecting to get reviews tearing it apart. Then I find that it's the opposite.

Ah, I thought his massive size connected to his need to drink Bronzong's Special Elixer and him having a gift was all from the same thing. Still, looking forward to finding out the truth behind it! Good luck with the rest of your writing! Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns too.

Last night, it happened. It was a quiet, moonlit night, like most others in Littleroot's history, when Steven Stone, Hoenn's Champion, arrived at my front door. He had flown in from Ever Grande on his Skarmory, and, for the first time, uninvited.
We had spoken on occasion, as Steven was a friend of my mother. He had never shown up uninvited, was always polite, and loved to show me his collection of Pokemon. As best I can tell, Steven not only had the well-trained Pokemon seemingly required of the Champion, he had the heart and compassion to compliment this power.
Tonight was different, however. As I opened the door for him, he trode across the house, to the kitchen where my mother was, not even bothering to say hello to me. He said something to her, and she followed him out of earshot. Knowing I wasn't welcome in this conversation, and assuming Steven would involve me if it concerned me at all, I drag myself into my computer chair upstairs and start writing a tale of me and my pokemon adventuring through Hoenn and becoming a League Champion.
I hadn't gotten much farther than, "Last night, it happened," when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. A knock on the door, and it opened, revealing Steven and my mother walking in, his face spread in the type of hearty grin only Steven could muster, while hers was taut and solemn, as if she was privvy to what Steven was grinning about and wanted no part of it. He came up to me, knelt down so that he was eye level with me, and held out his hand.
In the palm of his hand rested a pokeball. He put his other hand on my shoulder, and spoke in his unmistakable voice. "Chris, This is to be your companion. I'll admit, it doesn't look too formidable, but it is nothing to be underestimated. I believe in you, and so does your mother, despite the look she's wearing. She doesn't want to lose you, and fears for her safety." I nod my understanding, and take the ball from his hand. I then approach my mother, wrap my arms around her as tight as I possibly can, and ask her permission to leave. She struggles out a faint forced yes, and starts sobbing.
Steven makes his way toward her, nods his reassurance to me, and the two vacate the room. Alone with the ball, I point at the center of my room, and open it. Of all the Pokemon Steven could've entrusted me with, he has bestown upon me a Castform.

@SomaQL try using spaces between paragraphs, as reading a mass of words is tiring to the eye, when you're in front of a computer screen.

The story was fast paced. Exactly how much would you write, if you decided to start it? If you were going to write much, you can be a little more descriptive and explain to us a few more things. What's your name, what's your mother's name, where do you live in the Hoenn region? Why is Steven visiting you? Of course, these can be answered in time, but still.

You seem to describe events from a third person view, rather than your own view, never mentioning how you feel after being given your Pokemon. Give us a piece of your own mind in the story, to give it hue.

@Ray Maverick, This is properly formatted in my word document, but translates over like this. My final will be a word document that can be printed if you so wish.

I'd write until I returned home after defeating the Elite Four. In this story, names don't have to be important (I wrote a compelling story once that used no names and was written in this style; it was published in my local paper as a work of art :DD). I've always believed that, if writing a first person story, the reader should decide how you, the main character, feel. This is a concept I picked up from the Metroid Franchise, which defined what Samus does and that She's awesome, but never ventured into her personality as a character. To this end, the player was able to imprint their own feelings onto Samus as her personality. I believe that you should be able to accomplish this in writing as well.

To answer your other questions, (where do you live in Hoenn?) = second sentence, Littleroot town. (Why is Steven there?) = To... give me a pokemon.
Thanks for the help, I'll use it to help refine my style :D

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